


This Is What It Means

by lumosdragon



Category: DC: The New Frontier, DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Rare Pairings, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 05:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosdragon/pseuds/lumosdragon
Summary: A Martian and a human travel through America.





	This Is What It Means

**Author's Note:**

> Set in a version of the New Frontier universe where King Faraday didn't die.

Despite everything, it is a beautiful planet. Or: because of everything, it is a beautiful planet. He has yet to decide which statement is truer.

King is driving. He refuses to let J’onn behind the wheel. J’onn doesn’t mind. He sits in the passenger seat, staring out of the car windows. The landscape unrolls around them in waves of color and light. Lush hills, green and white and brown with foliage. A towering wall of soft gray mountain rock. The trees, with their twisting roots and playfully dressed branches. He has passed through places like this before, during missions, but this is the first time he has been able to really observe them. His body tingles; he wants to change, shift into a form that will let him become a part of the life he sees around him. He imagines flying up the mountain slope. His fingers skimming over the hard stone and cool wet grass.

He knows he has to restrain himself. He has taken on a human shape for this trip, so as to avoid attracting unnecessary attraction. In keeping with the theme, he has also decided to restrict his senses. It’s strange to feel as humans feel, or how he imagines they must feel – but interesting, almost exciting, in its own way. He is surprised that even when he is limiting himself to seeing within the humans’ visible spectrum, the world is so lovely. As for shapeshifting, he knows it spooks King. He hasn’t said anything about it – he would never admit to something like squeamishness or discomfort – but J’onn has noticed that whenever he begins to change, King carefully averts his eyes.

There must be a way to immerse himself in the landscape without giving himself away as the Martian Manhunter. He wants to see the whole expanse of the sky.

“I want to stop. Can we stop?”

King starts, glancing over at him with mild alarm. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all. I only want to step out of the car for a moment.”

King hesitates. “Okay,” he says finally, slowing and pulling to the side of the curving mountain path. He stays by the car, leaning against the hood as he taps a fresh cigarette out of the packet. J’onn touches the rough black asphalt. He bends over a plant at the side of the road and rubs its furry leaves between his fingers. When he tilts back his head, he sees a blanket of blue, cloud-spotted sky.

And the air, so cool, and the fresh sharp scent of new grass and wet stone. This is what it means to be human, he thinks. Isn’t it? He glances over his shoulder at King, exhaling a cloud of smoke, staring into the middle distance at something J’onn can’t see. He thinks to ask him, but decides against it.

*

J’onn is on holiday.

“They give you holidays at the Justice League?” King asked when J’onn first called. Even over the phone, his suspicion and incredulity were undeniable, but J’onn chose to ignore it.

“I asked, and I was told I could take off a week.”

“Good for you, I guess.” There was a pause, then, “So what does this have to do with me?”

J’onn and King still talked – mainly about their work. Out of all the members of the Justice League, King was most comfortable communicating with J’onn. When he wanted information about League activities, especially if he was operating outside of government bounds, he called for J’onn. But it had been a long time since they had seen each other.

“After the incident with the Centre, you offered to show me the American sights whenever I wanted to see them – outside of Gotham, outside of the cities and military bases. I know it has been a while, but I have decided that it is time. I want to see the sights.” He suddenly realized how forward he sounded, and added, “If you are still available to take me.”

King was quiet for a long while. J’onn could hear the click of his lighter, his soft inhale. “I’m driving,” he finally said, “When can you leave?”

*

The motel room is gracefully shabby. The wallpaper is faded, and the bedsheets smell of dust and age. They are sitting at the night table, where King has arranged his pocket chess set.

“No funny business, Jones,” he warns before they begin. He taps one finger to his temple, grinning. “Stay out of here.”

“Of course,” J’onn says. He watches while King deliberates over the board. One of the first things he figured out on Earth is that humans do not take well to having him inside their heads. He understands why, but it saddens him sometimes. It makes him miss his friendships on Mars. Absences don’t mean much between Martians. After spending time apart, he and his loved ones would fill the gaps by slipping into each other’s minds. He has tried to explain this to other members of the League before, but it is difficult to express the sensation to people who do not possess the full range of Martian senses. The closest analogy he can come up with is water. “Our minds are like lakes. If we wish, we can open our dams and allow the water to flow together, until we can no longer tell where one begins and the other ends.”

“You create a sort of…of mental river,” someone once suggested, “between one mind and the other.”

It isn’t like a river, though, because a river only carries water one way. With non-Martians, yes – he opens his mind and lets himself flow into the mind of the other. They do not, cannot, reciprocate. With Martians, it’s different. It isn’t a matter of information or power or domination. It’s about intimacy.

“Check,” King says, sudden and surprised. J’onn returns his focus to the board, swiftly moving to block King’s attack. “You’re off your game, John. You’re not going easy on me, are you? Because you know I can win on my own –”

“Checkmate.” J’onn crosses his arms and leans back in his chair; King peers over the chess board, eyes wide with indignation.

“God_dammit_.” He sits up, glowering. “What are you doing? What is this, some sort of alien taunt?”

J’onn has begun playing with the lamp on the night table, turning the knob so that the bulb flickers on, off, on, off. He quickly pulls away when King turns to stare at him. “No.” He hesitates before finally deciding to offer the truth. “I – I like light features. We do not have such things on Mars. There’s no point. We aren’t restricted to seeing within a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, like humans are. Even after all these years, I find your lamps and bulbs interesting. There are so many types, so many ways you have devised to fill your lives with visible light.”

“Huh.” King looks at J’onn, at the lamp, at J’onn again. J’onn cannot read the expression on his face, and he struggles to quash the urge to reach into King’s mind. “Never thought about lamps that way. Never really thought about lamps at all, to be honest.”

“Why would you? They’re mundane to anyone who has spent their whole life on Earth.”

“Yeah. Right.”

They are quiet for a moment. J’onn reaches out and twists the knob on the lamp one more time. King coughs, then begins busily and purposefully resetting the chess board. He raises a piece and waves it enticingly. “Another round?”

J’onn smiles. “If you want to lose again, I suppose I can’t stop you.”

*

The road is endless, a thin black ribbon stretching into the horizon. Around them, rippling fields of gold and green grass. J’onn can sense other people buried in houses and barns, other cars behind and ahead of them. But he can see no one, and he feels an odd prickling fear at the idea that he and King are alone in the middle of America.

He eats to distract himself. When he and King first set out on their trip, he filled his luggage with bags and bags of Oreo cookies. King laughed when he saw them.

“We’re only going to be on the road for a week. You really think you’re going to need this many cookies?”

J’onn ignored him, and now he’s glad he did. He has finished more than half of the cookies he packed. King turns to stare at him in disbelief as he tears open a new package.

“Slow down, John. How many of those have you eaten already, anyway?”

“Are my cookies that different from your cigarettes?” J’onn mumbles around a mouthful of chocolate. King narrows his eyes.

“_Hmm_.”

They have rolled down the windows. The wind rushes into the car, carrying a thick musky scent J’onn can’t place. He contemplates it as he polishes off his sleeve of cookies.

“What was it like?” King suddenly asks, “Mars, I mean. You’ve never said.” He doesn’t look at J’onn; his eyes are fixed on the never-ending strip of road.

The world is stuck in this moment, playing over and over like a broken record. The field, the road, J’onn and King, the last people in America. J’onn wants to say something. He is filled with an immeasurable sadness because he has no choice but to speak. This is what it means to be human. To talk and talk, and hope that talking is enough. Clinging to words to communicate the deepest emotion, love and grief and wonder and loss. He looks down at his hands – his human hands, pudgy pink flesh dotted with black cookie crumbs – and his sadness has now become anger. He is so tired of trying to belong on Earth. He lets himself change, not to the safe, friendly shape he takes with the League, but to his true Martian form. He has missed this elongated frame, this lovely textured skin.

King glances in his direction and quickly looks away. “You don’t have to answer,” he mutters, “if that question crossed the line…”

The wind has whipped his hair out of shape, and he pushes loose strands from his eyes impatiently. Ash crumbles from the end of his cigarette, speckling the shoulder of his jacket. J’onn watches this happen, and takes pity. After all, King Faraday is supposed to be his friend. Talk, he tells himself. Let him know. Try to be human.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. Careful, careful. “I would describe my home planet to you if I thought I could do it justice. The problem is that –” He sees a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. “Stop! Stop the car!”

King screeches to a halt, his cigarette dropping out of the window. “What happened?”

J’onn points across the road. All of the sorrow and frustration has been eclipsed by sheer enchantment. “_Cows_.”

“Are you _serious_ –” But J’onn doesn’t allow King to finish. He unlocks the door and steps out, reveling in the feeling of his true body unfolding and stretching free. “John!” King cries, “You can’t go out like that –”

“There is no one around to see me,” J’onn calls over his shoulder, “Don’t worry, I can sense if a human presence nears.” He strides to the fence separating the cows from the road. Any Martian would be able to tell that he is radiating excitement. Most of the cows ignore him, barely glancing up from their grazing. He is tall enough in his true form to climb over the fence in a single step, but he doesn’t want to startle the animals. Instead, he contents himself with reaching out a hand. Humans cannot read his psychic signals, but perhaps, these creatures…

King has come over to stand beside him. J’onn wonders if he is going to say something, but he remains silent, watching as one of the cows steps forward – slowly at first, then with more conviction. J’onn rests his hand on its muzzle; it blinks up at him with large wet eyes. Once he is sure that it is comfortable in his presence, he reaches into its mind. It’s been so long since he has been able to properly explore a willing, friendly mind. He lets himself fall into it – a world of sunlight and grass, a sensation of strength and gentleness, the thump of hooves on soft ground and the heaviness of milk. It’s like an exhale, a release of tension and worry, this moment of real connection with another being.

When he finally opens his eyes, he sees that King is staring at him. “Are you reading its mind?” King asks quietly.

“Not…reading. Not exactly.” J’onn searches for the words to explain. “It’s an experience. I’m not searching for anything. I’m not trying to do anything. I am letting myself fall free. I am letting myself become more than my individual self.”

The thick musky scent of cow, the warm white sun hanging in the sky. There is a solitary beauty to this empty American road. There is something in King’s eyes, some solitary and beautiful feeling. “John.”

He is filled with hope. Inexplicably, unexpectedly. He hadn’t realized he was waiting for this, this sign. The cow, the sun, the field, the sky. J’onn and King Faraday. He takes a breath. “Yes?”

King opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then turns away. “We should probably get back on the road if we went to reach the next town before it gets dark.” And his eyes are flat now, and he is walking back to the car, and J’onn lets his hand drop from the cow’s muzzle. Before he joins King in the car, he shifts to his human form again, shrinking and softening, making himself palatable and forgettable. There is nothing left for him to do.

*

He often thinks about his first few months on Earth. The trauma and frustration and anguish. The long hours spent in front of the television, absorbing the glorious waves of human culture and language. The anger and panic and fear. The days in the cells, drowning in his confusion. The days in the cells, speaking with King Faraday. Playing the game of chess with King Faraday. He remembers the tune King whistled while he walked through the underground corridors, a sweet old ballad that was completely unlike him. He remembers their conversations, echoing in the shadowy cavernous rooms where they sat. So many words – about the Centre and the impending end of the world, of course. But about the rest of the world as well. The city of Chicago, where King grew up. His time in the war, and the friends he had lost. His family – his father, his mother, his sister – all of whom had passed.

“And now?” J’onn asked once, “Do you have a family?”

King shifted his weight, stared at a spot on the ceiling, lit a new cigarette. “No,” he finally said, “Not in the way you’re thinking of, anyway. No wife, no kids, no white picket fence. I’m…I’m not the family type. Besides,” he added, grinning crookedly, “nuclear family doesn’t really suit the secret agent lifestyle.”

He remembers thinking, I don’t have a family either. On Earth, I am not the family type. We are both alone.

He remembers seeing into King Faraday’s mind, the one time he was able to do so. He has never forgotten King Faraday’s mind. He has carried it with him – the belief in goodness, the belief in a better world. What sort of person could live on this planet and see the horror that happens every day, the violence and war and slaughter, unceasing, and still believe? J’onn wanted to be that person. J’onn wants to be that person. He has seen the worst of humanity while working with the Justice League, and it is so easy to think: This is not my planet. I do not have to be good, because it will never get better. I can give this up, and devote myself to finding a way home. But he remembers King Faraday, and he keeps going. It is difficult, but he keeps going. Every day, he makes an effort to become the person he wants to be.

He holds King Faraday in his mind, and in his heart. Without King Faraday, J’onn does not know who he is.

*

They have parked before a lake. It is a large silvered mirror, lapping against the pebbly shore underneath their feet. J’onn has removed his human form’s shoes. He dips his toes into the water and startles at how cold it is. He jumps away from the lake’s edge with a cry, and King laughs.

“Can you swim?” he asks.

“Not in this form. But there are others – animals, I mean – that I’m sure would allow it.”

“Doesn’t matter, anyway. Can’t swim in this particular lake.”

“Can _you_ swim?” J’onn asks. King shrugs.

“Sure. My sister and I used to go to the local pool in the summer.” He is quiet for a moment, thinking. “There was a lake near my home, actually. We didn’t swim in it, but I’d spend time on the shores with friends sometimes.”

J’onn tries to imagine a young King Faraday. He tries to imagine his friends. He likes that he is King’s friend, and that they are at the shores of a lake right now. It’s a delightful image, and he wants to reciprocate, to give to King what he has just been given.

“There was no water where I lived.” It takes J’onn a moment to realize what he is saying. He is talking about Mars. “There was ice, though. It was nothing like ice on your planet. Nothing on Mars was like it is on your planet. But it was just as beautiful, if not more so. The mountains, the hills, the deserts and the way they glowed…”

“John,” King murmurs. He places a hand on J’onn’s shoulder, and only then does J’onn notice that his whole body is shaking. He scrambles to hold on to the human shape, but his true Martian form threatens to break through. He is not meant to take on another shape for this long. He is not meant to do many things that he is doing on Earth. His body trembles, and so does his mind, shivering and vibrating and breaking into psychic fragments. He is not meant for this.

King’s voice manages to break through the confusion. “John, are you okay?” His grip is tight, his fingers digging into J’onn’s arm. “Is there anything you need? What can I do?”

There is something he can do. If J’onn can bring himself to ask. Words, he tells himself. His human shape is starting to fall apart.

“I want to tell you,” he whispers. His true form is bursting from the mask he was wearing, growing long, growing strange for Earth. He seizes King’s hands. How can he explain? “I want to tell you what I need. But I want to do it the way I know how. I know you don’t like others inside your mind, but I don’t know how else to give you this…this sense of me. It will be incomplete, because you cannot give back, but maybe it will be enough. Maybe it can be enough.”

He is a tree, twisting roots and playfully dressed branches. He shifts to his true form, and King does not look away. Instead, he reaches up. J’onn instinctively bends to his touch, letting King place his hands on the sides of his Martian face.

“Give it to me,” says King, “Let me take it from you.”

In the end, J’onn does not reach into King’s mind. King reaches into his. J’onn did not know such a thing was possible, but he feels King’s consciousness within his own, and he opens himself to it, he rushes forward to meet him.

This is J’onn. The red vastness of Mars. A flower glowing in ultraviolet light. The pleasure of chess. Running his fingers along the ridges of chess pieces. The longing. The longing. The frustration, the anger, the longing. So sick for home. So in love with Earth. So sick for home. The longing for home. Devoted to this beautiful planet he is trying to call home. Devoted to being _good_. A stranger, too strange to call this place home. Restless. Alone. He wants to go home.

This is King. A memory of darkness. A memory of sadness, and of fear. The white water of a lake in the summertime. The pleasure of chess. An empty apartment. A crumpled newspaper. The pleasure of a new suit. The longing. The longing. The pleasure of moving, always moving. The claustrophobia of stopping. The rush that comes with being on the move. The longing. So in love with Earth. A memory of darkness. So in love. And the goodness, embedded in his very core.

This is what it was like on Mars, thinks J’onn. My home. This is what it was like to feel like I belonged. This was what it was like to see Earth for the first time, to understand Earth for the first time, and come to love it as my own. This is why I can’t go back, and this is why I so desperately want to return. How do I hold both these feelings inside of me? Sometimes I think it will tear me in two.

I understand, thinks King. I understand the longing, the searching, for some place to finally rest. And the fear of resting. I understand the joy of belonging and the loss of a safe home. I want to put the darkness behind me, all the death, all the horror. I’m always moving from it, always trying to fight it. I want to rest, but if I stop, I’m afraid the past will catch up.

I want to be known, thinks J’onn, thinks King. I do not know how to be known. I am so in love. So alone. At last, I am known.

And when King pulls away, the link isn’t broken – a whisper of connection remains, a whisper of water and light. He looks out over the lake, hands buried in his pockets. J’onn takes a step back. Waiting. He doesn’t mind waiting. His body is free; his mind is clear.

When King finally speaks, his voice is so quiet that J’onn can’t hear what he says. “Pardon?”

“Thank you,” King says again. His eyes still fixed on the clear mirror of the lake.

There are words J’onn can say now – words he should say – but he decides against it. He doesn’t need them, not anymore. He places his hand on King’s shoulder, and feels the tension drain from him. Finally clear, finally free.

This is what it means to be human, J’onn thinks. This is what it means to be human, King thinks. There is no difference. They are one and the same. They sit by the lakeshore and watch the movement of the clouds, the ripple of the waves, the Earth breathing and growing around them. Despite everything, because of everything, it is beautiful.


End file.
